


Beneath Blue Skies

by devovitsuasartes



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 15:27:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8896993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devovitsuasartes/pseuds/devovitsuasartes
Summary: Even though Ian Gallagher's a piece of shit, Mickey's sorry that the last words he ever said to him were "fuck you." He's sorry about it, lying here, bleeding out. Mickey always thought he'd die like an alley cat, spitting and angry to the last, but instead he's just real fucking sorry.





	

**Author's Note:**

> An expansion of one of the postcards in [Postcards From Mexico](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8835688).

It's an easy job. Which, of course, is why it goes horribly wrong.

They have the security codes for this house belonging to some wealthy Wall Street asshole who uses it as a holiday home - basically, a place to fuck his bits on the side. This guy isn't just into banging any old whore who comes around, though. He likes to target real fancy bits of ass, which means that the house is full of real fancy shit that he uses to impress them. Mickey doesn't really get it, but he doesn't care. All that matters is that he stands to make about 100,000 pesos off this job if the details about the house's contents are accurate.

He smokes aggressively in the passenger seat of the van, not bothering to open a window despite the fact that Rodrigo is glowering over at him. The three of them - Mickey, Rodrigo, and Paulo in the back - are all wearing grey overalls and the van has a generic moving company logo on the side. The classics never go out of style.

They pull up at the gate and Mickey pulls the single-button remote out of his pocket. 

'This doesn't work I'm gonna cut your cousin's fucking hands off,' he states matter-of-factly to Paulo, who visibly cowers. Paulo is scared of Mickey. Rodrigo is too, though he tries to act tough and not show it.

Fortunately for Paulo's cousin, the gate slides smoothly open when Mickey hits the remote, and they drive up to the house. Mickey affects an air of nonchalance, but in truth he's on edge. They're seriously fucking fenced in here, and Mickey doesn't like being backed into a corner. He flicks his cigarette out onto the driveway and grabs one of his guns from the glovebox, for comfort more than anything else. The house is deserted.

'Alright,' he says, slamming the van door open and throwing a glare over his shoulder at Rodrigo as Paulo opens up the back of the van. 'Keep that fucking engine running,' he snaps, before turning his attention to the house. 'Come the fuck on, King Kong,' he barks at Paulo, who hurries after him. Paulo is big and broad and good for carrying heavy shit, which is the only fucking reason Mickey was willing to bring him along.

His hand is sweating as he taps in the code on the keypad by the door. There's a brief pause, then a pleasant-sounding beep and a green light, and Mickey hears the locks slide back. 'Fuckin' A,' he mutters, gesturing at Paulo to follow him in.

The entrance hallway is all pristine white marble, but Mickey isn't interested. He directs Paulo to carry the flat-screen TV from the living room out to the den, while he himself runs up the stairs. The good stuff's going to be in the master bedroom: fancy watches, probably a stockpile of gift jewelry, and maybe even a safe. Plus the medicine cabinet - the guy who owns this place is probably the kind of guy who has a stash of pills to help coax nervous girls into bed and keep his woody once he's got them there.

His guesses aren't far off. Mickey has a backpack stuffed full of Rolexes and roofies when he hears the crunch of tires on the driveway outside, and then a sudden barrage of gunshots. He freezes, then hurls himself over to the window and snarls, 'Oh, _fuck_.'

The house must have had a silent alarm. Armed security are outside, trading shots with Rodrigo through the shattered windshield of the van. Mickey sees Paulo throw himself into the back, pull the doors shut and then the _fuckers_ are driving off, they're _leaving_ him.

Making a mental note to kill the both of them slowly and painfully and drop off their body parts with their families in installments, Mickey runs to the back of the house, opens a window, and unleashes a string of the foulest curses he knows when an alarm starts blaring through the building. There's a trellis outside the window and Mickey half-climbs, half-falls down it. He can hear the security guards running up the stairs behind him, because they're fucking idiots, and Mickey's going to get away. His heels slam into the pristine back lawn and he sprints around the side of the house.

The security car is empty with its doors open and Mickey is severely tempted to steal it, but the keys probably aren't in it and he won't have time to hotwire it. Between him and the front gate there's nothing but open space and Mickey's going to make it. He's running faster than he's ever run in his life, faster even than when his dad was chasing him, and he's going to...

Mickey hears the gunshot and, when he first hits the ground, he thinks he's just tripped over. He was going very fast, and he tumbles over and over and over on the asphalt, scraping up his face and hands and knees and hip as he goes. With a pained groan, Mickey drags himself to his feet again, and now he can feel that something's wrong. His legs aren't working right.

Then the second bullet catches him in the back of his left shoulder and this time he _feels_ it. His nose smashes into the ground and breaks as he's flung forward a second time.

' _Ugh_ , fuckers, you fuckers,' Mickey spits viciously, scraping himself off the ground and limping through the gate. He can hear yelling behind him, can hear the pounding of feet, but Mickey is no stranger to running wounded. He crosses the road, throws himself into a thicket of trees, ducking branches successfully only half the time. They can't follow him out here, not in that car, and Mickey isn't stopping.

Just when the trees open out again, Mickey feels his adrenaline start to wane. With the very last vestiges of his strength, he hauls himself over a fence, falls down the other side, and then rolls and rolls and rolls down a hard, concrete hill until he rolls to a stop.

Things go a little dark for a while, but when Mickey eases his eyes open in his battered face he's looking up a slope that has a long, haphazard trail of blood down it, and his feet are in water. _Drainage canal,_ he thinks. He's lying in blood too - a lot of it, actually. That can't all be from his shoulder. Mickey's stomach is very wet so he drags his hand over it, grits his teeth and moans when his fingers catch on a ragged hole a few inches above his hip.

The ground is very, very hot and Mickey suddenly feels unbearably thirsty. The water is so close, disgusting as it is, and Mickey wants so badly to drink from it. He can't seem to move, though. Just watches his blood ooze into the slowly trickling stream. It occurs to Mickey that this is probably it. This is how he's going to die.

And of course. Of _course_ he thinks of Ian Gallagher.

Ian taking every penny out of his bank account to give Mickey a fresh start. Ian abandoning him at the border. Ian saying, "I love you," all hard-lipped and earnest and stubborn. 

Mickey realizes that Ian won't even know he's dead. Mickey has been using a fake name since he got here. Ian will have no way of finding out. Ian will spend the rest of his life thinking that Mickey's just growing old out here in Mexico. Probably picturing Mickey on a beach, drinking tequila, soaking up sun. If Ian thinks of him at all.

The sky is really blue. Mickey can't lift or turn his head but he can see how blue the sky is. He can see the canal stretching on for miles. He wonders what he looks like to the seagulls flying overhead. A bloody smear and a lump of meat on the pale ground. Like fucking roadkill.

Even though Ian Gallagher's a piece of shit, Mickey's sorry that the last words he ever said to him were "fuck you." He's sorry about it, lying here, bleeding out. Mickey always thought he'd die like an alley cat, spitting and angry to the last, but instead he's just real fucking sorry. He's sorry and he's sad and he's fucking scared. He wants his dad or Mandy or Ian here. He wants someone to know he's gone.

* * *

 Mickey goes from the hot Mexico sun beating down on him to cold, cold metal under his naked ass and his first thought is that he's in the morgue. Then the pain starts to come back, oozing into his veins, and he groans. He's so fucking cold. So cold. He wants to go back out in the sun.

'He gonna die?' he hears someone ask casually from the corner of the room.

Fucking Rodrigo. Fucking asshole. Mickey's gonna stab a screwdriver through his eyesocket. He tries to hiss angrily through his teeth, but it just sounds like a balloon deflating.

A dirty white coat comes into the edge of his vision. Rodrigo's uncle. The sawbones. One of Mickey's eyes is all swollen and closed up but he peers defiantly at the doc through his good eye. The guy sniffs, unimpressed.

'Probably,' he replies. 'Lost a lot of blood. Looks like an infection.'

'Eh.' Rodrigo shrugs. 'Least he won't snitch. If we hadn't pulled him outta there they might have taken him to a real doctor.'

'Hey, fuck you, man,' sawbones retorts with a laugh. 

"Quit jerking each other off and get me some fucking water," is what Mickey wants to say, but it just comes out as a choked groan.

Rodrigo stretches. Mickey hears the bones popping in his back. 'Let me know if he dies,' he calls over his shoulder as he leaves the room. 'I'll get the kids to dig a hole.'

Mickey kind of spaces out for a while after that. When he drifts back into the room, he can hear soft, tinny moans and the sound of skin on skin. He cracks one eye open, sees a blurry figure and rhythmic movements and gurgles in disgust.

'Are you fuckin' spankin' it while I'm lying here dying?' he slurs.

There's no response, just continued gross noises. Mickey raps his knuckles feebly on the metal table.

'Ay, ay, cut it the fuck out,' he whines.

The doctor sighs irritably. Mickey hears him slam the lid of the laptop shut, sees the white coat approaching.

'Fuck you saying, gringo? Speak fucking Spanish.'

Shit. Mickey had slipped into English without realizing it.

'Are you gonna fuck me when I'm dead?' he mumbles, in the right language this time. 'You like fucking dead bodies? Oh man. Oh shit. Bet you fucking do, don't you?'

'Don't flatter yourself,' the sawbones says, lighting a cigarette and taking deep puffs as he pulls down the white sheet covering Mickey's body, prods at his stomach. Mickey feels the pressure everywhere, spreading up through his torso, and he groans and coughs. Something awful-tasting lands on his tongue.

'Hmmm,' the doctor says. 'Still just a little infected. Could go either way.'

'So give me some fuckin' antibiotics or some shit,' Mickey mumbles.

'Who's gonna pay for that, gringo?'

'I'll pay.'

The doctor chuckles in a creepily good-natured way. 'Bitch, I already took everything you had on you. Rodrigo's gonna clear out your apartment when you bite it.'

'He's not gonna find it all. There's a stash...'

'He'll find it. He's good.'

'If I tell you where it is...'

'Won't cover the cost of the drugs.'

Mickey feels anger and helplessness spreading sluggishly through his body. His thoughts are slowing down. 'How about...' He coughs again. 'How about the cost of a stamp?'

The doctor takes hold of Mickey's wrist, feeling his pulse. 'You want me to write to your momma?' he asks, his voice a little gentler this time. 'Boy, I would have done that anyway. Family deserves to know.'

For a moment, Mickey considers asking for a letter to Mandy or his brothers, but who knows if they'd even give a shit. He only knows one person for sure who ever loved him.

'Nah,' he murmurs, closing his eyes, resting them. 'Mom's dead. Send the letter... send a letter to Ian... Ian...' He's so hot. Hot and dizzy.

'Ian Gallagher?'

That snaps Mickey out of it a little. 'Huh?'

The doc taps Mickey's chest. Taps his ugly-ass tattoo. 'This guy?'

Thank god for bad decisions. 'Yeah,' Mickey says. Exhausted, he rattles off the Gallagher house number and street, repeats it. 'In Chicago... Southside... look it up, please tell him, tell him...'

'Don't worry, man,' the sawbones says. He almost sounds kind. 'I always write something real nice.'

* * *

Mickey doesn't die. He gets real close, _real_ fucking close, but somehow his worthless body manages to wrestle the infection into submission, kicks it in the teeth. He has two bullet holes in his back along with the one in his stomach and they heal so fucking slow - way slower than the times he got shot in the leg and in the ass. Mickey loses about 20 pounds while he recovers, and as soon as he's well enough to stand the doc kicks him out and sends him back to his own apartment. Rodrigo drives him there with this sour expression on his face. Mickey can tell that Rodrigo was looking forward to stealing all his stuff. Mickey is definitely going to kill Rodrigo when he's feeling better.

He grabs some snacks and bottles of water from his shitty kitchenette in the corner of his shitty apartment, dumps them by the side of his bed, lies down and tries not to move. His bullet holes are stitched roughly and will leave ugly scars. He stays there all day, three days, for almost a full week until he runs out of food and water and has to drag himself to the corner store.

On the way in he sees the spindly little display of postcards and grabs one on impulse. He sent Ian a few postcards since he got here - mostly bitter, angry shit that he hoped would hurt him. Right now, though... Right now he's too tired to be angry.

He considers telling Ian about the failed robbery, about running through the trees and falling into the canal and lying there thinking that he was going to die. He wants to tell Ian that he thought about him when he was dying, but that's fucked up, and also more than Ian deserves. He wants to admit to Ian how scared he was, how alone he was, how honest with himself he was when he thought it was all over.

Eventually, he writes:

> **I got shot again. Hurts like a motherfucker.**
> 
> **\- Mickey**

He looks at it for a few moments and thinks, yeah. Yeah, that's true enough.


End file.
